I don't think he fudged the P3 trials, or forged the Hisun deal. Of course not. In fact, he doesn't even own any shares, probably because he can't under SEC regulations as someone convicted of insider trading.
Rather, what bothers me is that CLSN management decided to hire the guy anyway. It makes me doubt their judgment. There's no question they knew about his past before they hired him. What makes me wonder is if his pedigree was of such a quality that they decided to overlook his history completely.
Personally, his history would be a deal breaker for me as a CEO. I would much sooner look for other candidates with similar pedigrees, which were no doubt available. I can't imagine that he was the only applicant at the time with good qualifications for his initial position. This only leaves a few possible scenarios:
1.) They didn't know about his history, for whatever unfathomably ridiculous reason.
2.) They knew about his history, but there were just no other candidates at the time with qualifications nearly as good as his.
3.) They knew about his history, and there were other similarly qualified candidates at the time, and yet he was hired anyway, perhaps due to a stellar interview process or personal recommendation (networking).
The only ones that really seem plausible are 2 and 3.
In the end, I recognize that Raj's history will have no material effect on whether Tdox as a technology works. The tech is the tech, whether there are previous criminals working in the company or not. All signs point towards the tech working, so I remain bullish.
However, given that IMHO I consider hiring Raj a bad judgment call, it makes me wonder what other bad judgment calls management has made or will make in the future. Unless I discover some incredibly good reason for hiring him (i.e. there was just no one else available with a similar pedigree), my concerns will remain.
I think I'll be exiting CLSN on the pop, and that's it. My original intent was to go super long (2+ years), but now I am not so sure.
I wonder if Jeff Church would speak to why he was hired...?
